All Stories

Raul Granados-Rendon, a leader of the Granados family sex trafficking ring based in Mexico, pleaded guilty to sex trafficking conspiracy and faces sentencing today in Brooklyn federal court.

U.S. District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto presides over sentencing in Courtroom 6C South.

Granados-Rendon was indicted in 2011 for operating a family-run sex trafficking organization based in Tenancingo, Mexico.

Court documents revealed that between October 1998 and June 2011, Granados-Rendon, and other members of his sex trafficking organization smuggled dozens of young women into the United States from Mexico and forced them into sex work in Queens. From there, the women were transported to other parts of the northeast.

Prosecutors said that victims were beaten or sexually assaulted by members of the organization if they refused to perform sex work. Victims said that Granados-Rendon and other traffickers threatened to harm their families in Mexico if they resisted sex work.

In 2015, USA Today reported that members of the sex trafficking ring handed out pamphlets in Spanish called “Chica cards” to passersby along Roosevelt Avenue, one of Queens’ busiest thoroughfares. The pamphlets advertised a phone number to call for cheap sex.